Tryharding through Kingmaker, a guidebook to hell, by Pink Eye.

[mediocrepoet]

Not because I can't beat it, mind you, but because Kingmaker's unfair with its 2x damage and massively bloated stats just feels way too cheesy in its difficulty. The stat bloat makes it so I have to approach encounters in a cookie cutter way about every single time, and it feels more like work than fun.

Guess it lives up to its name, but it's not an experience I'm interested in - guess I'd rather take the milder challenge of "challenging", after all. The question remains whether I'll have the strength to restart the game for the umpteenth time.

I agree with pretty much all of what you said. I find that hard mostly hits the sweet spot for me, since you can't steam roll quite as much as on challenging and you don't have your characters randomly exploding anywhere near as much as on unfair.

 

[dbouya]

I really like this thread, I'd love to see it continue, although I understand if you're past it.

 

[Darko]

I can't fucking crack the secret to beating the ancient tomb on unfair. I've been rereading some of my posts and was trying to come up with different ways to make the ancient tomb easier for martial builds and four man parities. And I can't figure anything out. It looks you HAVE to recruit mercs.

It was a very difficult fight on my run too (sword saint PC), managed to beat it twice in about 30+ tries with Valerie dying on the first successful try. No mercs, used diplomacy on Jae-bae. Needs some luck not just with attack/damage rolls but also with initiative.
Valerie should have all available AC buffs, at this point it's just Barkskin and Shield of Faith potions.
PC and Amiri attack archer, Valerie walks up to middle of the room to pick up aggro from melees, engages half-orc to get Fighting defensively up. Linzi auto-casts daze on gnome.
Archer needs to die in the first round. With some luck gnome doesn't resist daze or Jaethal doesn't get one-shotted. Otherwise if archer one-shots someone on his second attack or if gnome resists daze and manages to hit Valerie... just reload. At least it's a fast process at this point in the game.
Then PC or Linzi cast grease on melees, Amiri runs up to the guy casting Enlarge. If a melee gets greased then PC and Amiri switch on him to use that sweet +4 bonus and AoO. If Valerie falls or if half-orc decides to switch targets and get out of grease it's time to reload.
At this point it's 4v2 with one of the enemies having to resist grease and other resisting daze each round.

Also one correction: Valerie loses -2 attack penalty with tower shields at level 5. I still find it worthwhile to trade 2 attack for 2 AC, compared to a heavy shield.

 

[Pink Eye]

I can't fucking crack the secret to beating the ancient tomb on unfair. I've been rereading some of my posts and was trying to come up with different ways to make the ancient tomb easier for martial builds and four man parities. And I can't figure anything out. It looks you HAVE to recruit mercs.

It was a very difficult fight on my run too (sword saint PC), managed to beat it twice in about 30+ tries with Valerie dying on the first successful try. No mercs, used diplomacy on Jae-bae. Needs some luck not just with attack/damage rolls but also with initiative.
Valerie should have all available AC buffs, at this point it's just Barkskin and Shield of Faith potions.
PC and Amiri attack archer, Valerie walks up to middle of the room to pick up aggro from melees, engages half-orc to get Fighting defensively up. Linzi auto-casts daze on gnome.
Archer needs to die in the first round. With some luck gnome doesn't resist daze or Jaethal doesn't get one-shotted. Otherwise if archer one-shots someone on his second attack or if gnome resists daze and manages to hit Valerie... just reload. At least it's a fast process at this point in the game.
Then PC or Linzi cast grease on melees, Amiri runs up to the guy casting Enlarge. If a melee gets greased then PC and Amiri switch on him to use that sweet +4 bonus and AoO. If Valerie falls or if half-orc decides to switch targets and get out of grease it's time to reload.
At this point it's 4v2 with one of the enemies having to resist grease and other resisting daze each round.

Also one correction: Valerie loses -2 attack penalty with tower shields at level 5. I still find it worthwhile to trade 2 attack for 2 AC, compared to a heavy shield.

I agree with you there. Dispatching the archer within one round is quite important. The problem is that sometimes you can get unlucky and whiff all your attacks. You take the archer out, then you focus on the gnome. The way I do it is that I flank then charge the archer down. If you have a high STR build you can one shot the archer in oen round. Then you have to focus the gnome down with charge. If he casts enlarge, then you're fucked.

If you picked Harrim. He can possibly hold the flank. Which should spare you enough time to finish the rest off. Of course the problem with this fight is how the rolls can go against you.

>Then PC or Linzi cast grease on melees, Amiri runs up to the guy casting Enlarge. If a melee gets greased then PC and Amiri switch on him to use that sweet +4 bonus and AoO. If Valerie falls or if half-orc decides to switch targets and get out of grease it's time to reload.
That's interesting. I never considered casting grease on him. I might retry this fight again.

Edit: You need to have not picked Harrim in the prologue. And need to roll the diplomacy checks successfully in order to get him.

 

[Darko]

I agree with you there. Dispatching the archer within one round is quite important. The problem is that sometimes you can get unlucky and whiff all your attacks. You take the archer out, then you focus on the gnome. The way I do it is that I flank then charge the archer down. If you have a high STR build you can one shot the archer in oen round. Then you have to focus the gnome down with charge. If he casts enlarge, then you're fucked.

If you picked Harrim. He can possibly hold the flank. Which should spare you enough time to finish the rest off. Of course the problem with this fight is how the rolls can go against you.

>Then PC or Linzi cast grease on melees, Amiri runs up to the guy casting Enlarge. If a melee gets greased then PC and Amiri switch on him to use that sweet +4 bonus and AoO. If Valerie falls or if half-orc decides to switch targets and get out of grease it's time to reload.
That's interesting. I never considered casting grease on him. I might retry this fight again.

Edit: You need to have not picked Harrim in the prologue. And need to roll the diplomacy checks successfully in order to get him.

I've reached Stag Lord part of your guide. Instead of dealing with all the bandits, why not simply kite them to zombies. Jae-bae is perfect for this, as she can not die and has undead immunities:

Spoiler

When a group of bandits leaves the fort, have the rest of the party follow from distance. This gives plenty of room to kill the last bandit who will attempt to ring the bell. Minimal reloads needed.

 

[Pink Eye]

>why not simply kite them to zombies.
Never crossed my mind actually. I never even considered the possibility of doing that. Whoa. Very good idea. I recently did this encounter on Hard with a monk on solo. It was a youtube video. Though I did it through wand spam and kiting. Again it never crossed my mind to lead the bandits to the zombies. Huh.

 

[EdgyRightWinger]

I'm going to necro this to point out that in the current version of Kingmaker, every Mansion fight except the two sleeping assassins can be cheesed: Your party members, except you, cannot permanently die in the mansion. Same as Jaethal's power.

Turn off all autopauses, run the MC away, and send your party forward to fight with their basic attacks. They will die, and res, and slowly whittle away at the enemies. You alt-tab away and can do something else while you wait.

So, on unfair, you should save all your resources for the sleeping assassins fight.

 

[Desiderius]

Feyspeaker Val w/ Leopard tank should work. I had Smilo which was lower AC but more damage. If you go to Sycamore and Ratnook before Tomb you can get enough trap exp for lvl 3. Grenadier MC helps for Touch attax.

Heroism pot + Rage + Charge + Courage + Bull’s + Enlarge + Flanking on Amiri should give you some O if you can draw attention away from her. I had her with Booter Bane first round.

Linzi on Demoralize + Laughter should also have a shot and Help Amiri hit.